Summary
From the bestselling author of Eventide , The Tie That Binds is a powerfully eloquent tribute to the arduous demands of rural America, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.
Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder. The clues: a sack of chicken feed slit with a knife, a milky-eyed dog tied outdoors one cold afternoon. The motives: the brutal business of farming and a family code of ethics as unforgiving as the winter prairie itself. Here, Kent Haruf delivers the sweeping tale of a woman of the American High Plains, as told by her neighbor, Sanders Roscoe. As Roscoe shares what he knows, Edith's tragedies unfold: a childhood of pre-dawn chores, a mother's death, a violence that leaves a father dependent on his children, forever enraged. Here is the story of a woman who sacrifices her happiness in the name of family--and then, in one gesture, reclaims her freedom.
Kent Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado on February 24, 1943. He received a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. His first novel, The Tie That Binds, was published in 1984 and won a Whiting Writers' Prize. His other works included Where You Once Belonged, Plainsong, Benediction, and Our Souls at Night. He spent 30 years teaching English and writing at several universities including Southern Illinois University and Nebraska Wesleyan University. He died on November 30, 2014 at the age of 71.
(Bowker Author Biography)
